A Birth day

Aria looked at Robert and nodded " sleep well Robert" she said as he left leaving them alone. " hes right the toughest opponents are best chipped away at" she said as Ruby walked from the kitchen and placed some seers tea down next to Angus .

"just drink as much as you can handle" Ruby said softly to him before she sat down next to the play pen and enjoyed the warmth she felt from the now gentel glowing fire not far from them. " thanks for doing the fire Marcus, really get rid of that chill" she said smiling to him.

"My pleasure. I noticed the cold and damp when we were out earlier," Marcus said, "so I thought perhaps we might enjoy the first fire of the season. I have to enjoy it here because I forgot to order some firewood for our cottage. I know Jack would bring it, but I don't want to bother him with it. I'll try to get over myself to the stock of firewood with our gardening wagon and load it up.

"Thanks, Ru. I'm fine, really. Robert's spell has handled most of it," Angus said.

"Did he lecture you?" Marcus asked.

"No. He teased me saying that if I hadn't muscled up like I have, the wand might have broken bone. As it is, it didn't get the chance because all that firm muscle didn't let the fragment get close to the bone."

"Well, I'm sure he's actually correct. If you had a skinny arm, your bone would have been dead center. With those biceps, it actually skewed the trajectory a wee bit. Just enough to keep from fracturing bone," Marcus replied. "You were very lucky."

"I wasn't lucky at all. I had you and Jack. I didn't need luck." Angus saw Jada trying to form a sign of sorts. She hesitated. "No, now, don't give up. You're fine. Keep going." She hesitated and then finished her message. "Well done!" he beamed. "Good job. Now, in answer to your question. No, this was not your fault. We get called to do some sort of battle or contest with all sorts of dark creatures. Things like this tend to be inevitable contests for us sooner or later. And no, we don't back away. We just go get them. So don't feel guilty. This is just what we do, and honestly, for us, its fun. We like what we do."

She looked at him with a deep frown like he had three heads. It made him and Marcus laugh.

"I agree with you, Jada," Elwood laughed. "The cheese has slipped off their crackers--both of them." She nodded.

"When I finish my tea," Angus told Marcus, "you and I will go haul firewood to your place."

Ruby and Aria smiled to Marcus and chuckled when Jada gave Angus a 'your off your rocker ' look but it was Aria who spoke " don't worry Jada the longer your here the more you'll understand these two and every one around them" she said smiling to her.

Ruby smiled to Angus and nodded " I'm glad its helping" she said and heard Marcus and Angus talking " I for one am glad hes as muscular as he is" she said smiling to Angus. She spotted Jack carrying some logs over to the cottage and place them in the store beside it " looks like Jacks ahead of you again, hes just dropped some off ." she said " but stocking up couldn't be bad." she added seeing Jack being called away by one of the grounds men.

"Jack works hard to make sure he's on top of everything," Angus said. "I rarely have to every do anything out on the grounds now because Jack has it in hand. However, I think we should get a move on. It does get dark early this time of year. We won't have til 9 or 10 tonight if we want do have light to do it."

"Agreed. You sure your arm is up to it?" Marcus asked, as he and Angus went to get their work jackets.

"Fine," Angus nodded. "Ru, would you check the pot roast, please? Hopefully it still has plenty of liquid. If it needs any more, there's a bottle of dry red wine in the fridge. You can add some of that to the roasting pans if you need to. I doubt we'll be long with two of us working at this." The two of them went outside to get Marcus's garden wagon to haul firewood.

Ruby nodded to Angus as he mentioned the pot roast " of course" she said smiling as she moved to the kitchen once they had left to get the firewood. Opening the door she lifted out the roast and basted it then added a little bit more wine to the roast before placing it back in the oven again " cooking nicely" she said as she walked out Aria looked up from a book she was reading and chuckled.

" that's good." she said " smells wonderful too" she added as the aroma of the roast flowed out from the kitchen into the living room.

" yeah just added a bit more wine to it , the basting liquor was a bit too thick." Ruby said as she sat down again by the fire to enjoy it once more while the guys were out collecting fire wood.

Angus and Marcus made quick work of stacking a few wagonloads of logs near the back door of the cottage. It was just starting to get dark when they put the wagon away and came back to the duplex. They saw Victor and Sam winding up their jobs for the day and starting to come home too.

"The boys are on their way home," Angus said. "I'd better get the pot roast served up. Can I get one of you to set up the sideboard, please?" He took both roasters out of the oven. He took one large soup tureen and he used it to dish up the potatoes and carrots and onions. He got a large meat platter and dished up large chunks of the perfectly lean roast beef, ladled some of the rich wine gravy over the beef and then put some of the leftover gravy into a gravy pitcher in case someone wanted extra. He sliced a big loaf of crusty bread into generous slices and placed them on a large bread board, placed a pottery crock of soft Irish butter beside the bread, and then garnished the platter of meat and the tureen of vegetables with some finely chopped parsley for a little color.

"That smells divine," Elwood said, his hand on his stomach. Andrew noticed the small movement, and he touched him slightly just to check him.

"That's your stomach growling," Andrew laughed. "You're really hungry. It's been a long, long time since you had that sensation, hasn't it?"

"Is that what that is?" Elwood frowned. "Its been so long I forgot what it felt like."

"That's the first you've experienced since you've been with us. That's part of the healing Robert's been waiting on. He's going to be thrilled. And, it should mean that you can eat well at supper tonight."

The boys came home and headed straight upstairs. Angus wrinkled his nose.

"Wait a minute. What did you two bring in?" Angus frowned.

"Sorry," Victor said. "We both need to shower in the worst way. We ended up having to deal this afternoon with a hippogriff with the runs. Got into the damned sheep food..."

"Well, crap. Sheep are vegetarians, and hippogriffs are carnivores," Angus sighed.

"Tell that to the bloke who had been using some sort of illegal potion during his shift. We didn't mention it to Jack, but if this guy does it again, we'll have to," Sam said.

"Now, you two look here just one moment. I know you don't know the history, but if Khaat gets wind that anyone on staff is doing illegals, she'll dice the up herself with her bare hands. That is a complete no-go for her. You'd better go tell Jack this instant before her seers energies outs him and you two. Turn right around and go do it now. And then come back and shower."

"Well, yeah. You're probably right. I saw this guy slipping out of Joseph's place not more than 20 minutes ago."

"Go. Go now. Tell Jack exactly what you saw. What you saw was this nutball trying to set up Joseph as the person either doing the illegals or supplying him. We are not going to let Joseph get set up for anything he didn't do."

"Okay," Victor said, as he and Sam turned back around and headed back outside towards the barn.

Ruby and Aria saw Angus and the boys return but quickly held their noses " wow what a stink" Aria said but listening she nodded she agreed with Angus while Ruby set up the side bard .

"food will still be here when you get back" Ruby said as she placed down some plates and crockery on the side board. Aria watched them leave and helped Ruby set the table for every one.

"smells divine" Ruby said " oh I added a bit more wine to the liquor as it was looking a bit thick" she told Angus " hope that was okay?" she asked. Jack was finishing up feeding the animals ready for the night time lock up when he saw the boys walking over .

"shouldn't you too be showering and getting ready for supper?" he asked looking up as he finished filling a bucket with clean water. Seeing the look on the boys faces he placed down the bucket and stood up to face them both " okay what is it?" he said " I can tell by the look on your faces there's something you want to tell me."

"You did fine. That's exactly what I wanted you to do. Thanks," Angus told Ruby.
 
"We did go home," Victor told Jack, "but Angus sent us back. We ran into an issue with the hippogriff today. Swift had diarrhea this afternoon--really badly. And we think we know why."

"You know that new bloke?" Sam asked. "That ginger guy that wears his sunglasses all the time? Well, he fed the hippogriffs earlier, and we found he'd put the sheep food into the feed bins for the hippogriff. We did our best to get all the grain out of there and put the eat back in for Swifty, but the damage was already done."

"And then I caught him way out by the summer kitchen," Victor said. "And he had some sort of a little drawstring pouch that he was wearing on a cord around his neck under his hoodie. Every time I've seen those pouches, they had some sort of illegal potion powder in them. I was hoping it was a one time thing but now I"m not so sure."

"I saw the same guy coming out of Joseph's place a short bit ago--before Joseph was done working. So I know Joseph wasn't there," Sam said. "When we went home with hippgriff poop on our clothes, we ended up telling the story to Angus, and he didn't think we could wait. Something about Khaat having a real issue with anyone doing illegal potions. He felt we needed to tell you straight away before Joseph was set up to take the blame maybe for something we can almost guarantee he didn't do."

Jack listened to Victor and Sam and nodded as they spoke " well thank you for telling me , leave him to me and don't worry about Joseph getting into trouble , with both of you vouching for him he'll be fine and the fact he was working with me too this afternoon. " Jack spotted the guy in question headed to the guard house and he smiled " okay go and wash up now, I'll inform Robert so he can make the necessary arrangements" he said with a smirk as he waved the boys back to the duplex.

Jack walked to the main house and saw Joseph talking to one of the cooks " Joseph do not go back to your place just yet , I need to talk to Robert" Jack said and headed to Roberts office to see if he was there and free to talk about what he had been told.

Robert and Khaat were both in Brian's office discussing an idea Robert had had for Kate for Christmas when Jack found them.

"Oh, Jack," Robert said. "Your timing is perfect. Khaat and I were discussing an idea I had for Christmas but it's a rather long way to go to get to what I want for her gift from me this year," Robert said. "I want an oil portrait done, but obviously, if it's for Kate, I can't have her do it. I'm going to ask Angus to give it a go, but I honestly think that since his house is always full of people and chaos, I'm going to offer to put up an addition of sorts for him so they have a bit more room, and it should give him some space to do some more ambitious projects. I know they've been sort of toying with the idea of an addition, but I'm going to actively offer it to him. that would mean, of course, that we'd have the delivery of construction materials. I was considering offering the pack if any of the wanted to be part of a construction crew and offer to pay any of the that took the work exceptionally well because it would be worth it to e to reduce any strangers on the estate. Any objections? Any other ideas?"